December 14, 2007
 

China imports shrimp farming technology from South African firm 

Bosasa, a South African Group of companies, is providing closed-door shrimp farming technology to Chinese company China Direct.

The technology would be implemented at China Direct's plant in Zhangjiang High-tech park in Shanghai and managed remotely by software engineers and other personnel from Sondolo IT, part of the Bosasa Group of companies.

The Bosasa Group of companies is a diversified broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) organisation that operates nationally in South Africa. The group includes shrimp company Sea Ark, project management company BuildAll and Sondolo IT.

The technology would come from Sea Ark, BuildAll would provide the project management expertise and Sondolo IT would provide the software necessary.

The agreement was signed between Sea Ark CEO Gavin Watson and China Direct CEO Sean Ding last week.

In China, BuildAll would deploy a permanent team of four project managers, and Sondolo IT would deploy software engineers for the duration of the construction of the Zhanjiang plant.

Supported by architects, plumbers, electrical, civil, and software engineers on a rotational basis, the team would ensure that the Chinese facility is built to the exact specifications as the company's hi-tech shrimp farm in Coega, South Africa, which has just passed its pilot phase.

BuildAll would ensure that every one of the 8 000 ponds to be built in China conform to the patented Sea Ark system. Once the Chinese facility is fully operational, technical experts from BuildAll will stay in China to help run the project and to convert existing open ponds to the  biosecure Sea Ark system.

Many of Sea Ark's patented processes will be run remotely from Coega, such as water quality and temperature, feed consistency, and plant biosecurity would be monitored online by South African technicians at the Coega research and development centre.